A few interesting notes regarding the Book of Romans.
Do you strive to Elucidate* all of
Holy Scripture? *Elucidate: To
make clear and comprehensible. The Greek word, 'PAS', meaning 'ALL', can have different meanings as shown
Romans 11:16-21, "If the dough
offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy,
or
Do you Elide** verses that do not agree with your
beliefs?
"It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
Matthew 4:4
**Elide: To ignore or to omit.
For a
person to elide parts of Holy Scripture, it is counter to "but by every word
that proceeds from the mouth of God" in Matthew 4:4.
Romans 1:8, "Your faith is proclaimed all over the
world."
Elucidations:
What does 'all over the world' mean?
It means Universal, or in Greek, Katholikos, which was later Latinized
into
Catholicus, and then into English as Catholic.
Psalms 19:3-5, "Day to day
pours forth this word, night to night sends out this knowledge.
There is no
speech and no utterance whose sound may not be heard; into all the earth their
sound goes forth,
and unto the ends of the world their tidings."
Romans 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and wickedness of men
who by their wickedness suppress the
truth."
Elucidation:
For those who teach against the Church founded by
Jesus Christ, they had best do their homework first.
They must go to the
source, that same Church, for the truth of what it teaches, before they start
teaching at all,
else they face the fury of GOD if they do not teach
absolute truth regarding it.
Romans 2:1, "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you
judge another;
for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself,
because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."
Elucidation:
Do you recall, "Do not judge, and you shall not be
judged; do not condemn and
you shall not be condemned. Forgive and you shall
be forgiven"? Luke 6:37
Romans 2:6, "who will render to every man according to his
works."
Elucidation:
Yet another verse to counter those who teach
that works are useless.
Romans 2:8, "...but wrath and indignation to those who are contentious,
and
who do not submit to the truth but assent to
iniquity."
Elucidation:
Yet another verse which admonishes us to
'submit to the truth'.
How can anyone teach the truth of what the Catholic
Church teaches unless they have first gone to the source,
to the Catholic
Church itself, to find out what it really teaches, and not listen to those
non-Catholics who have not done so?
Romans 2:13, "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before
God,
but the doers of the law who will be
justified."
Elucidation:
What good is being a hearer only of Church
teaching when the person doing the hearing will not be a doer also of what is
heard?
Romans 3:23, "...all have sinned..."
Elucidation:
Here is that
pesky word 'all'. As used in this verse, does the word
really mean everyone?
Did Jesus Christ sin? Have new born babies sinned? Have
those who are out of mind sinned?
in other verses of Scripture...
Mt 3:5-6, "There went out to him
Jerusalem, and all Judea, and
all the region about the Jordan; and they
were baptized by him in the
Jordan, confessing their sins." Was all Judea,
or all Jerusalem, baptized
in the Jordan? The word 'all' is used
in several senses in Scripture,
and it is rarely that 'all' means all
persons, taken individually.
Rom 11:26, "'ALL' Israel shall be
saved." Will all be saved here,
or does the biblical sense for
'pas' have a meaning of a great many in this verse?
Rom 15:14, "...you
yourselves are full of love,
filled with 'ALL' knowledge..." Here we know
for sure that the only person
filled with 'ALL' knowledge is GOD Himself.
'Pas' in many verses in
Scripture simply means a 'great number', or 'a
lot'.
Romans 6:7, "For he who has died is freed from sin."
Elucidation:
This must have been the verse which inspired Saint Louis Marie de
Montfort to say
that he will never sin again, as he lay dying.
Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is
eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Elucidation:
Which
would you rather choose?
Romans 8:16-17, "The Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we
are sons of GOD.
But if we are sons, we are heirs also: heirs indeed of GOD
and joint heirs with Christ,
provided, however, we suffer with Him that we
may also be glorified with Him."
Elucidation:
Why is there so much
suffering in the world? We have asked that question many times.
We have seen
it and experienced it ourselves. Those two verses explain the reason 'why'
in
a very clear and concise manner.
How many who have asked the question
have elided those two simple verses?
Those verses could easily been directed
at His Church also, since that Church is His body (Eph 1:22-23)
and therefore
is subject to the same scourges as was His human body.
I would suggest that
you read the Book of Job for much more on the subject of suffering.
Romans 8:28, "Now we know that for those who love GOD all things work
together
unto good, for those who, according to his purpose, are saints
through his call."
Elucidation:
We have heard many times that GOD
brings good out of bad situations.
We cannot know the mind of GOD and cannot
immediately see any good in bad situations.
However remember that we are in
time and can only see what we experience at any moment.
GOD is out of time
and can take something bad and turn it into something good in a time that He
chooses.
The best explanation that I have ever seen regarding GOD and time
is to imagine that our
lives are likened to a video tape. We can see only one
frame at a time as life passes by,
whereas GOD sees the whole tape from
beginning to end all at once.
Romans 8:31, "...If GOD is for us, who is against
us?"
Elucidation:
This is one of my favorite verses. Why be afraid of
anything other than possibly losing our souls?
What force on earth would give
you trepidation, if the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings is with you?
Romans 10:14-15, "How then are they to call upon him in who they have
not
believed? But how are they to believe him whom they have not
heard?
And how are they to hear, if no one preaches?
And how are men to
preach unless they be sent?"
Elucidation:
For
me this is one of the best sequential threads in Holy Scripture.
How many
preachers do you suppose elide this one, simply because they cannot show that
they were sent by GOD?
Romans 10:16, "But all do not obey the gospel. For Isaias saith: Lord, who
hath believed our report?"
Elucidation:
I know that tens of
thousands in recent centuries who did not obey the gospel when they encountered
the words,
"That they may be one". Many of those
are the 40,000+ individuals who founded their own
ecclesial communities
without any authority whatsoever to do so.
And
many still elide the words "That they may be one" today.
Romans 10:17-18, "Faith depends on hearing, and hearing on the Word of
Christ.
But I say: Have they not heard? Yes, verily: Their sound hath gone
forth into all the earth:
and their words unto the ends of the whole world."
Elucidation:
Sounds like the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)
doesn't it?
so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you,
a wild olive shoot,
were
grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, do not boast
over the branches.
If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the
root, but the root that supports you.
You will say, "Branches were broken
off so that I might be grafted in." That is true.
They were broken off
because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith.
So do not
become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches,
neither will he spare you."
Elucidation:
'A wild olive shoot',
doesn't that sound like one who is not worthy of being a true branch
since he
or she does not fully accept all of the truths of the root from which it is
attached?
The rest of the verses have said it all.
I can add
nothing.
Romans 12:2, "Be not conformed to this world..."
Elucidation:
Do
you remember these verses from another page of mine, the Book of James in which I quoted from John also?
"Do not love the
world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love
for the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father
but is
of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but
he who does the will of GOD abides for ever."
1John 2:15-17
I
repeated these verses as an example of the harmony within the Bible,
of how
the various authors conform to and reinforce one another.
Romans 12:19, "Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place
unto
wrath, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the
Lord."
Elucidation:
This in a complimentary verse to the command that
we should 'love our neighbor'.
Did you get the message?
Romans 13:1-5, "Let every person be subject to the governing
authorities.
For there is no authority except from God, and those that
exist have been instituted by God.
(2) Therefore he who resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will
incur judgment.
(3) For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Would you have no fear of him who is in authority?
Then do what is
good, and you will receive his approval, (4) for he is God's servant for your
good.
But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in
vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath
on the wrongdoer. (5)
Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also
for the sake of conscience."
Elucidation:
There is a lot to digest
in those verses. They should have given Martin Luther and those who
followed
in his footsteps trepidation, that is if they did not elide them
from the onset of what they did.
The very basic topic for the different
Christian religions is who has the
The second line of the first verse is very clear and ties in
with those who are sent with the authority from
GOD.
Romans 14:8, "Owe no man anything except to love one another;
for he
who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law."
Elucidation:
How
many verses are in Holy Scripture regarding the laws that must be
followed?
This verse should give many of us some comfort.
Romans 15:5, "Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be
of
one mind, one towards another, according to Jesus
Christ:"
Elucidation:
One God, one Church,
one faith, one belief, etc, etc, etc.
What part of 'one' is so hard to
understand by so many?
Romans 15:14, "...I am convinced with regard to you that you yourselves are
full of love,
filled with all knowledge, so that you are able to admonish
one another."
Elucidation:
When you see error
you must admonish the person(s) in error in order to correct it
or else.
Be sure to read the link to the error page for the important
reason of why you must do it to avoid the 'or else'.
"Not to oppose
error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it".
Pope St.
Felix III (483-492)
Romans 16:17-18, "I exhort you brethren, that you watch those who
cause dissensions and scandals
contrary to the doctrine that you have
learned, and avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ,
but
their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of
the simple minded."
Elucidation:
This is for those who refuse to
listen to the truth. See Titus 3:10 for more on this important topic.
I
have used these verses on a few that have attacked me and who have closed minds
to the truth.
As my dear Fr Dwyer would tell us, "The hardest thing to open
is a closed mind."
January 30, 2012
Updated June 2,
2014
Galatians 4:16